Ex-melrose Park Cop Facing A Jail Sentence

Lieutenant Convicted In An Odd Elmhurst Stolen-vehicle Case

December 11, 1996|By Art Barnum, Tribune Staff Writer.

A former Melrose Park police supervisor was found guilty Tuesday of possession of a stolen vehicle and obstruction of justice by a DuPage County judge who called the former officer's explanation "concocted, improbable, and unreasonable."

Former Melrose Park police Lt. Robert Argento, 49, appeared upset Tuesday when Judge George Bakalis found him guilty of the two criminal charges, but found him innocent of charges that he actually stole the vehicle.

Argento had admitted he was drunk when he got into an accident in Elmhurst in 1991. But he denied knowing that the 1991 Chevrolet Suburban he was driving had been stolen.

Argento, who was a sergeant and chief of detectives at the time of the accident, claimed that he got the vehicle from an acquaintance who was repairing his own Suburban. The 1991 vehicle's style and color closely matched Argento's 1986 Suburban and was carrying the plates from the 1986 model.

When Elmhurst police found the damaged vehicle on the evening of June 25, 1991, Argento had fled the scene.

The next morning a Melrose Park police officer retrieved the vehicle from an Elmhurst lot, before the Elmhurst police realized it had been reported stolen the previous January, according to Assistant State's Attorneys Alex McGimpsey and John Berg.

After the vehicle was returned to Argento's Melrose Park home, it disappeared and neither the Suburban nor the acquaintance repair man were ever located.

"Your explanation is not reasonable," said Bakalis. "It is not probable and it is inconsistent."

"Your explanation makes no sense, especially since you are a police officer," Bakalis added. "And it is strange to get other Melrose Park police officers involved."

Bakalis was also critical of the lack of help that Argento gave Elmhurst police investigating the accident and the stolen car situation. "A person innocent of wrongdoing would have contacted police," the judge said.

Argento was a Melrose Park police sergeant on June 25, 1991, when he drove the Suburban into a guardrail on a T-intersection of County Line Road and Lake Frontage Road in Elmhurst.

When Elmhurst police arrived to investigate, Argento had fled the scene, but another Melrose Park police officer arrived and identified the Suburban as Argento's.

Argento had claimed that he was drunk and left the scene because he was concerned about the effect a drunken driving charge would have on his career.

Argento said he had the 1991 vehicle for only a few days, but Bakalis said "you apparently had it permanently and it is highly improbable that the two vehicles were almost the same."

Argento later was promoted to lieutenant, but in 1994 he was involved in an automobile accident while on the job and is now on permanent disability.

Bakalis set Jan. 22 for sentencing. Argento could be sentenced to a maximum of 7 years in prison.

Tuesday's guilty decision comes less than a month after a Melrose Park police officer and a former village police officer were convicted in federal court of shaking down an illegal immigrant involved in an automobile accident, the mother of a crack cocaine addict and a drunken driver in three separate incidents.

Nick Filskov, a 10-year department veteran, and Martin Richling, a five-year veteran who resigned from the department earlier this year, still face sentencing of up to 3 years in jail.

Melrose Park has also been the alleged target of a massive federal investigation into possible municipal corruption in the west Cook County suburbs for the last several years, but neither local nor federal officials will confirm the existence of an investigation.